Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Humans:

People of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

William Adama (Edward James Olmos)

An almost-retired Commander whose assignment to the Galactica was a going-away present. As a veteran of the first Cylon war, Bill Adama is actually one of the better choices for command in the second war, not to mention a Cool Old Guy.


Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell)

The Secretary of Education under President Richard Adar (sometimes literally under), Laura Roslin was attending the de-commissioning ceremony on Galactica when the Cylons attacked. 43rd in the line of succession, she was sworn in as the lawful replacement President of the Twelve Colonies. Immediately other characters began to snark about having a kindergarten teacher for a president, but Roslin handled the office with more aplomb than even her supporters could have expected.

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff)

An excellent pilot with a rebellious streak a mile wide. This makes her Crazy Awesome, both in and out of the cockpit... though the show also deconstructs just what happens when you have a genuine Military Maverick on your hands. The Cylons, particularly Twos, claim that she has a "special destiny," and ultimately she uses Magic Music to lead the fleet to Earth. ...After dying and being returned as some sort of Angel Unaware.

Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber)

The son of Bill Adama, from whom he is estranged due to the death of his younger brother Zak. Apollo's opinion is that Adama pressured Zak into becoming a pilot, which Zak was not ready for; he blames his dad for his brother's death. He also takes after his grandfather (lawyer Joseph Adama) in being rather more loyal to laws, rights and civil liberties than the uniform. Eventually promoted to Commander, put in charge of the Pegasus, and wed to Dee.

Gaius Baltar (James Callis)

A Lawful Selfish genius scientist working on a new navicomputer program for the Colonial military, Baltar was unwittingly instrumental in the Cylon massacre: he was seduced by a Number Six who he believed worked for a competing defense contractor, and gave her access to the program, into which she inserted a virus which managed to disable most of the fleet. Surviving via luck and reputation, Baltar now has to negotiate the fleet while keeping his betrayal secret. There's also the fact that he now holds conversations with his version of a Shoulder Angel, another Six copy. Becomes President on the platform of insisting that the fleet colonize a semi-habitable planet called New Caprica, which turns out to be a huge mistake.

Felix Gaeta (Alessandro Juliani)

First appearing as a CIC crewmember, he eventually gets assigned to Dr. Baltar as a personal aide. He's an idealist—which is a bad thing to be in Galactica's World Half Empty; losing his leg in Season 4 is only one link in a "Break the Cutie" chain. Eventually leads a mutiny with Tom Zarek, which they lose.

Karl "Helo" Agathon (Tahmoh Penikett)

A Guy in Back in a Colonial Raptor, flying under Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, whom he kind of has a thing for. During the pilot/miniseries, their ship lands on Caprica and Helo abandons his copilot seat to save Gaius Baltar. That was meant to be the end of this Mauve Shirt, but fan reaction to him was so positive that RDM and David Eick decided to keep following his adventures, which involve being rescued by another Sharon copy. With her, he hecomes the father of "Hera," the first human-Cylon hybrid; he also serves as Adama's Number Two while Tigh is stuck on New Caprica.


Admiral Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes)

Captain of the only other (known) battlestar to survive the massacre of the Twelve Colonies, Cain adopted a much more ruthless attitude towards survival.

Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch)

Introduced as an inmate on the prison ship Astral Queen, Zarek was jailed for being the actor who played Apollo in the original show acts of terrorism. He sees himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist working for the common man; whether that's true or not, he's definitely good at politics. After inhabiting the Heel Face Revolving Door for several seasons, he settles on the bad-guy side, leading a mutiny against Roslin and Adama.

  • Blue and Orange Morality: One of the compelling things about Zarek is not that he's capable of doing bad things, but that he's capable of doing good things too. His moral code isn't always clear, but he definitely still has one.
  • Death Seeker: It's suggested by Lee that he's one.
  • Mythology Gag: Zarek is played by Richard Hatch, who played Apollo in the original series. Zarek spends much of his time antagonizing the present Apollo.
  • The Starscream

Anastasia "Dee" Dualla (Kandyse McClure)

A Twofer Token Minority first appearing as a Galactica CIC officer in the miniseries, where she basically played the role of Uhura. Provides possibly the biggest Shocking Swerve in the series when, after a happy and successful date with her ex-husband Lee, and with absolutely no prior indicators, she blows her brains out. Played by Kandyse Mc Clure.


Cally Henderson Tyrol (Nicki Clyne)

An enlisted deckhand serving Galactica's flight wing, Cally is known for a few things: having only one name for two seasons (her full name wasn't given until her funeral!); being a Plucky Girl (sometimes too much so), and having a thing for Chief Galen Tyrol. Marries the Chief during the New Caprica year and becomes pregnant with a son, Nicholas; is then executed by Tory Foster after she (Cally) stumbles upon the secret of the Final Five.

  • Go Mad from the Revelation
  • Love Martyr
  • Red Herring: Little Nicky was believed for quite a while to be another supposedly-impossible human-Cylon hybrid. Then it was revealed that, sometime before her wedding, Cally slept with Hot Dog.
  • What Could Have Been: she was originally slated to be killed off in an early episode. There seems to be a lot of fans who would have rejoiced in this. Or not, since the things that incur those fans' enmity hadn't happened yet.
    • Nicki Clyne also tried out for the role of Six.
  • Wrench Wench

The Final Five Cylons:

The last five humanoid Cylons to be revealed. All turned out to be major players in the human fleet, and the only survivors of a previous Cylon generation pre-dating the Colonies' Centurions.

Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan)

After Bill Adama was mustered out from the first Cylon war and began serving on a commercial freighter, he met a fellow veteran named Saul Tigh, and the two formed a deep friendship. When reinstated, Adama pulled strings to have Tigh brought in as his second-in-command. Tigh is an alcoholic who is often Off the Wagon, and is probably the series' biggest bearer of Fantastic Racism against the Cylons (with Starbuck as a close second). How amusing, then, that he's one himself.

Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon)

Tigh's wife, who miraculously survived the Destruction of the Colonies. She's manipulative, vain and kind of a bitch, a Stage Mom with her husband as object-of-control, and Adama notes that she and Saul just tend to make each other worse. During the New Caprica occupation, she seduces a One to free her husband from imprisonment, and then is forced to betray a crucial meeting. In response, Saul poisons her. This makes it even freakier that she turns out to be one of the Final Five.

Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas)

Senior Chief Petty Officer Tyrol is in charge of keeping Galactica's birds flying. He's very much an everyman in his approach to things, and often finds himself in positions of being the Only Sane Man. He was carrying on with Boomer for a while.

Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma)

Special Aide to the President, replacing the deceased Billy Keikaya. Word of God is that Tory was chosen as one of the Final Five precisely because she hadn't yet had much character development. It also created the interesting situation that all three Number Twos in the show are (arguably) Double Agents.

  • A God Am I: her reaction to finding out her true nature is roughly along these lines, coupled with a dose of "Sure Why Not?"
  • Karmic Death
  • Reincarnation Romance: averted. The original Tory and Galen were madly in love, but their Colonial versions are both too distracted by other people and concerns to even notice each other. When they find out, they just snicker. Ultimately averted in the hardest way possible.
  • The Snark Knight
  • Transhuman Treachery: Upon discovering she was a Cylon, she quickly jumps ship and joins up with them and wants to abandon humanity because Cylons are better than humans. She didn't really think this through though, as Cylons had recently added "killing each other", "civil war", and "screwing up royally" to that list of things Cylons are better at.

Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco)

An athlete on pre-massacre Caprica, the star of the "Pyramid" team Caprica Buccaneers, Anders turned his team into a resistance unit after the fall of the colonies. He was stumbled upon by Kara Thrace and Karl Agathon while the two were trying to get off-planet, and eventually rescued late in Season 2. Becomes a major figure in the resistance on New Caprica, not to mention Starbuck's husband.

Other Cylons:

The result of collaboration between the Centurions and the Final Five, each of these models has many copies, some of which have received more character development than others.

Brother John Cavil/Number One (Dean Stockwell)

Initially introduced as a priest from whom Tyrol seeks spiritual guidance, Cavil is revealed (practically on the same day) to be a Cylon. While the Cylons had previously run on a direct democracy, Cavil begins to take over as the series progresses, and his slight personality flaws go center-stage....

  • Affably Evil / Faux Affably Evil: Mostly the latter, but since there are more than one of him, it gets a little tricky.
  • Ancient Keeper (in Season 3)
  • Bad Habits: they tend to adopt priestly identities when infiltrating Colonial society.
  • Big Bad (in Season 4)
  • Character Development: In the movie "The Plan".
    • Especially the hat-wearing copy on Caprica, which is the only one of his line in the entire series to show mercy and realize that what the Cylons did was wrong. It's a shame that he was likely 'boxed' by the other Cavil, as he's never seen again.
  • Deadpan Snarker: As good as Baltar.

---Cavil: Sorry I don't mean to rush you but you are keeping two civilisations waiting.

  • Incest Is Relative: He knowingly has sex with Ellen Tigh, his "mother" for all intents and purposes (his creator, certainly). Oh, and he apparently resembles her father. Squick indeed. At least she spent their (hate)Sexy Time an amnesiac...
  • Kavorka Man: Manages to get in with Ellen, Boomer, and Tough Six. Boomer even goes back to him after having had sex with Helo. ???
  • Morality Pet: The parentless boy in The Plan. Subverted in that Cavil kills him when he realizes this trope is in effect.
    • This also qualifies for an Actor Allusion: The boy's costume is an exact copy of Stockwell's costume in "The Boy with Green Hair".
  • Motive Rant: "I don't want to be human!"

"In all your travels, have you ever seen a star supernova? ... No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe; other stars, other planets, and, eventually, other life. A supernova: creation itself. I was there, I wanted to see it, and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? ...With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! ... I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I, I wanna smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am?—I can't even express these things properly, because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I wanna reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I'm a machine, and I can know much more. I could experience so much more, but I'm trapped in this absurd body!"

    • And this is not a motive to sneer at, either. All Cavil wants is what every living thing, everywhere, wants: to be greater tomorrow than it is today. In fact, one could even call it a deeply human motive.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Still, it's all in how he chose to express that desire for greatness.
  • Pinocchio Syndrome: as you can tell from the Motive Rant, Cavil has this in reverse.
  • Rage Quit: In the finale, and how.
  • Scarpia Ultimatum: to his own mother.
  • Villain Protagonist: In "The Plan" movie.
  • Younger Than They Look: Like all the new humanoid Cylons, he's only 30-40 years old, but was made in the image of Ellen's father. Y'know, being born old might have something to do with why he's so cranky.

Leoben Conoy/Number Two (Callum Keith Rennie)

One of the first Cylons introduced (in the Pilot miniseries) and one of the first Cylons whom the Fleet finds a copy of in hiding, Leoben has something of a fixation on Starbuck, whom he is sure has a large role to play in the fates of both humans and Cylons. He's right. He goes straight back into creepy territory with his Stalker with a Crush tendencies, though in all fairness he does seem to genuinely love her.

D'Anna Biers/Number Three (Lucy Lawless)

Introduced as a rather pushy reporter doing an exposé on the Fleet (the fate of that copy is never revealed), D'Anna ends up taking center stage by becoming obsessed with discovering the identities of the "Final Five" Cylons, which (according to Cavil) are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know (or Cylons either, for that matter).

Simon O'Neill/Number Four (Rick Worthy)

Introduced as a doctor running what turns out to be a "Farm"—a giant lab where Cylons experiment with biological reproduction—Simon is polite and well-spoken, the opposite of the Scary Black Man (Cylonism notwithstanding).

Aaron Doral/Number Five (Matthew Bennett)

Introduced as a public-relations guy leading a flock of reporters through the halls of the Galactica museum, Doral was described as "Poor Man's Kevin Spacey" by Television Without Pity. He lived up to this name by proving he can totally go Ax Crazy when he needs to.

Caprica-Six/Number Six (Tricia Helfer)

The Femme Fatale Cylon who seduces Baltar, she is later embraced as a hero by her people, and her voice given extra weight in their democracy—even when she suggests that the Cylons attempt peaceful co-existence with humanity. Eventually travels to Galactica along with Athena and Hera, where she spends a lot of time in the brig frakking Saul Tigh, eventually conceiving a (short-lived) child with him. She also joins Baltar in the final battle, and it's implied that the two of them, at least, get a Happily Ever After. Other significant Sixes include Shelly Godfrey (Hot Librarian), Gina Inviere (Broken Bird), Natalie Faust, Lida and Sonja.

Daniel/Number Seven

Basically a plot device introduced late in the series to explain why the numbering on the Significant Seven jumped from Six (given to Helfer) to Eight (chosen by Park). The Daniels were artist-types and much loved by Ellen, which caused a lot of jealousy in the Ones. Eventually, Cavil took efforts to poison the entire Seven line, not only killing all extant Sevens but preventing any others of the type from ever being born.

Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Number Eight (Grace Park)

Introduced as a Raptor pilot on Galactica, the Twist Ending of the pilot/miniseries was that she was a Cylon. Later episodes made it clear that she didn't know she was a Cylon, and that there were programs hidden in her subconscious which caused her to be a Manchurian Agent. This culminated in her putting two rounds through Commander Adama's chest, after which she was offed by a vengeful Cally. Of course, Cylons respawn, and Boomer still had a bigger role to play....

Sharon "Athena" Agathon/Number Eight (Grace Park)

After the producers decided to keep Helo on as a character, their first question was what to do with him. The logical answer would be to pair him up with another Eight, whom he would think was Boomer but was actually a separate instance. This Cylon, who eventually chose the call sign "Athena" (and before then had to be called Caprica-Boomer to differentiate) had a very specific mission: the humanoid Cylons had thus far been unable to conceive biological offspring, and their theory was that The Power of Love was what was missing. Athena's job, then, was to get Helo to fall for her (and then frak her, of course). A High Heel Face Turn was almost inevitable. She then became the first Cylon character to openly side with the humans.

Baseship Hybrid (Tiffany Lyndall-Knight)

Not to be confused with little Hera, the Hybrid is a model between Centurions and humanoids, which serves as the CPU of a Cylon Basestar.

Other Entities:

Head-Six and Head-Baltar (Tricia Helfer and James Callis)

Introduced early in the series, "Head-Six" (as she's known in the writer's room) seemed to be a reincarnation of Caprica-Six (one never shows up when the other is around) that only Baltar could see, and essentially served as Baltar's conscience. She tends to goad him onward into taking actions he would rather not, sometimes even using physical violence to get the job done; she also seems to enjoy seducing him in plain sight.

With Tricia Helfer on-set as Head-Six most of the time, it took a while for episodes to come out that focused on Caprica-Six. When they aired, audiences were startled to discover that she had a corresponding Head-Baltar walking around with her. He tends to be more observant as opposed to coercive, often coming up with answers that shouldn't be possible.

Hera Agathon (Lily Duong-Walton, Alexandra Thomas, Iliana Gomez-Martinez)

The first-ever human-Cylon hybrid. President Roslin orders her death faked and the actual infant assigned to a foster mother, who is killed on New Caprica, causing the child to fall into the hands of the Cylons...

Minor Characters

  • Billy Keikeya: personal aide to Secretary of Education Laura Roslin, he spends one and a half seasons flirting with Dualla before being killed in a stand-off and, eventually, replaced by Tory Foster. Played by Paul Campbell, who was unwilling to sign a long-term contract, which is why the character was written out.
  • Dr. Cottle: a grumpy Major and the fleet's leading medic, he serves on Galactica and lectures his patients in between drags from a cigarette. His first name, Sherman, was only revealed during the series finale. Played by Donnelly Rhodes.
  • Louis Hoshi: first appearing as a Pegasus CIC officer, Hoshi continues to serve in the background throughout the rest of the series, eventually being promoted to Admiral as the ranking officer left with the civilian fleet when Galactica jumps away to fight the show's Final Battle. Was gay for Gaeta. Played by Brad Dryborough.
  • Louanne "Kat" Katraine: a "nugget" introduced early in the first season, she soon starts competing with Starbuck for the title of The Ace and even achieves the position of Commander Air Group (previously held by such luminaries as Apollo, Starbuck and Helo) before a Heroic Sacrifice in season 3. Played by Luciana Carro.
  • Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza: from the same class as Kat, Hot Dog evidently flunked out of naval academy before the Destruction. He survives the entire series, eventually maturing into one of Galactica‍'‍s best and most mature pilots. He's also the Real Life Apollo, as he is played by Bodie Olmos, EJO's son.
  • Romo Lampkin: an eccentric, self-absorbed and attention-hungry lawyer who takes up the unwanted job of being Gaius Baltar's defendent during his (Baltar's) farcical trial. Trained as a lawyer by Joseph Adama, William Adama's father. Played by Mark Sheppard.
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